Possumblog

Speaking of Cats...

I haven't really ever said much about it, but over the years, I have actually had a bunch of cats.

Let's see--there was Trouble, a tiger-striped cat of a fascinatingly wicked disposition that was our first cat. My sister sneaked him into the house and kept him in her room for a day or two before being found out. He hated having his stomach rubbed, which meant he got his stomach rubbed often. I also was chasing him one day in the yard while we were playing, and he stopped dead in front of me and I couldn't stop, which resulted in me stepping on his head. He was very woozy for several days afterwards.

After he went to cat heaven, there was Sylvester, who was black and white like his cartoon namesake. His claim to fame was terrible gas. He was joined at some point in there by a little orange cat we called variously Caesar, Squeezer, and The Baby One. Baby One got squished under my mom's car, breaking his back leg and taking off most of the hide. After many ruinous vet bills, he was as good as new, although he never got any bigger than he was when he was run over. Both of them managed to find out that the highway was much less forgiving than the driveway.

Next was Hildi, a gigantic fluffy black cat that we had after we moved away from the highway. I don't know whatever happened to her, and we later had another big fluffy black cat, but I can't remember his name.

Then there was Fanny, who was my sister's cat. She came from US Steel before my dad got laid off, and we thought she was beige. She was just dirty. Actually snow white. My sister lugged her all over several states, and loved her dearly. Unfortunately, when she moved back to Birmingham, the dogs in her neighborhood loved Fanny, too. A bit too much.

Meanwhile, back at our house, there was the inimitable Booger. So named because when we got him he was such an ugly gray rat-looking thing that it prompted me to say he was an ugly little booger. Booger grew up into one of the finest looking cats I have ever seen, though. He looked a bit like a Russian Gray, and although he was probably the most affectionate cat we ever had, he was also the meanest, toughest, strongest thing I've ever seen. Not an ounce of fat--a solid fifteen pounds of muscle. Our dog Wendy doted on him constantly, and he stayed around the longest of them all, but he wound up running away after Reba and I got married and we all [mom, dad, child, cat, dog] moved to Irondale together.

There are actually a few more in there, I think, but I can't remember them now, and my sister has had a few more as well, and she has two right now--Coco and Rocko, who are big fluffy oddities.

Anyway, I suppose all that was to say that I know how cats can be, and I just hope the kids won't have quite as much heartache as I've had over the years when a favorite friend is no longer around. I suppose that's one of the reasons I've been so hard to convince over the years to get another pet after both Booger and Wendy disappeared--it just hurts to lose them, and I guess I don't want the kids to be upset about such things.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at May 30, 2006 01:08 PM